
© Keith Roper – CC BY 2.0
Tunisia is the Middle East's greatest success story, according to the findings of the V-Dem Annual Democracy Report 2019.
One of the world's most regarded annual reports on democracy and good governance, the V-Dem Report is produced by the V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
While Tunisians can be proud of the prospect of democracy in their country, Israelis have little to be proud of. A country that has long prided itself, however misleadingly, of being 'the only democracy in the Middle East', has lost the title to Tunisia, a small North-African Arab nation of just over 11 million people.
Understandably, Tunisians might find their overall ranking ahead of well-established democracies less meaningful, considering that the politically unstable country is still undergoing a painful democratic transition. However, considering that the country has registered a sizable improvement in every democratic aspect examined by the V-Dem Report, Tunisia truly deserves the title of "the star pupil of democratization of the past ten years."
Israel, however, has been, once more, exposed for its charade democracy. Since it was established atop the ruins of the Palestinian homeland, Israel has relentlessly touted its democratic virtues while excluding millions of Palestinian Arabs from any form of democratic participation.
Comment: The exit of US troops is better now than never, which could easily have become the case given US' historic and intrusive military base proliferation across the globe. Is it a real drawdown or merely a consolidation ploy?